World Class University

Higher education professional development trends increasingly focus on areas of quality improvement, quality assurance and optimal technology delivery models to achieve academic excellence. World-class universities rely on their faculty professional development centres for an array of professional development programmes to support teaching, research and student learning. This article examines faculty development centres at eight world-class universities in Australia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States: Findings from this study include the structural characteristics of each centre as well as a summary of best practices in terms of programme development and resource management. We provide suggestions and recommendations to assist higher education administrators interested in establishing or strengthening professional development programmes at their own institutions.

The article explores the issues of academic excellence in higher
education to pursue a position in the world class universities. Two
universities in Pakistan have been chosen for the site of this qualitative
study, one which has achieved the status, and the other still aspiring.
The triangulation has been reached by document analysis of the quality
reports submitted by the two universities, semi structured interviews
with the senior and middle management of the universities, deans, and
director for Quality Enhancement Cells, and head of the departments
of the selected universities. The primary data obtained has been
compared and contrasted with the quality characteristics marked by
standards for academic excellence. Research findings inform us that
unawareness of the international quality standards, and its potential
benefits, disinterest of university leadership are the main problems, due
to which Pakistani universities are lagging behind. The study proposes
if proper understanding and meaningfulness is created through quality
professionalism, it would become much easier to pursue quality assurance process to meet international standards. The findings of the
study will be a unique contribution to the body of literature creating a
point of interest to policy makers and quality assurance practitioners of
the developing countries who are concerned about the academic
excellence of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to accentuate in the
significant areas which make any university, a world-class university.

This paper presents results of a questionnaire survey of 1400 Year 13 (final-year) school and sixth-form pupils in two contrasting areas of England, which asked them about their thoughts and plans to study at university abroad. Key questions that the survey sought to answer were the following. How many and what proportion of all higher education (HE) applicants, apply, or consider applying, to university outside the UK? What are their reasons for doing so? What are their distinguishing characteristics as regards type of school (state vs. private), academic record, parental socio-occupational background and prior contacts abroad? The questionnaire data were supported, but occasionally contradicted, by interviews with school staff members responsible for coordinating and advising on the HE application process. Approximately 3% of pupils apply to study abroad (most also apply to UK universities) and another 10% consider applying but do not do so. North America, Australia and Ireland are favoured destinations; not mainland, non-English-speaking Europe. Quality of university and desire for adventure are the most important motivations. Decisions to apply abroad are strongly correlated to the academic results of pupils (the best apply), to prior connections abroad (travel, holidays, residence abroad, etc.) and to a range of overlapping indicators of parental wealth and social class. The theoretical and policy implications of the research are also considered. Study abroad creates an 'elite within an elite' and works against government agendas of widening participation. On the other hand, English students' foreign experience potentially enhances their interculturalism and graduate labour market competitiveness, yet raises spectres of 'brain drain' of the 'brightest and best'.

The aim of this paper is to describe actions designed to foster interdisciplinary research efforts at a major university in the UK. The study employed a descriptive mixed method case study approach to collecting and analysing the data used to draw its conclusions. One hundred and twenty-seven academic staff responded to the survey. The results of the survey were verified by 25 interviews with heads of colleges, heads of schools, research coordinators, research team leaders, and team members. These interviews were supported by document review to support the findings. Leadership is important at the college and university levels if interdisciplinarity is to thrive. According to the data, this seems to have not yet occurred at this particular institution. The university has done well with most of the big structures that enrich and support interdisciplinarity. However, 'small' structures such as clarity of meaning, motivation of staff, misalignment of old structures, time and workload, and loss of identify have impeded the move to university wide interdisciplinarity. A series of three recommendations are made to move the interdisciplinary project forward: stay clear on focus, extend the benefits of serendipity to more people, and remember that one size does not fit all.

Executive Summary:

International student mobility, especially diploma mobility (students taking their entire degree outside the UK), has received little attention from researchers. This report summarises the findings of research funded by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills aimed at improving understanding of the motivations behind the international diploma mobility of UK students. It also seeks to evaluate the scale and significance of UK international diploma mobility. 

The research was undertaken by a collaborative team from the Universities of Dundee and Sussex during 2008 and 2009 led by Professors Findlay and King. It involved three key elements 

• a metadata analysis of sources providing statistics on international student mobility, 

• a survey of the application intentions of 1400 final-year pupils from schools in two regions of England, and 

• a survey of 560 UK students currently enrolled for study at universities in the USA, Ireland, Australia, the Czech Republic, France and Germany. 

In addition to the two questionnaire surveys, interviews were conducted with UK international students, international recruitment officers in 16 higher education institutions from around the world, as well as with school careers guidance teachers. 

According to the OECD the number of UK students studying abroad has risen from 16,866 in 1975 to 22,405 in 2005. This growth is less than that for most OECD countries. Metadata analysis reveals many problems with using international agency datasets to evaluate trends in diploma mobility. Careful examination of national datasets suggests that OECD statistics may over-estimate the true figure for UK international diploma-mobile students by more than 10 per cent. Best estimates produced by the researchers nevertheless point to UK diploma-mobile students accounting for the equivalent of about 1.7% of all UK domiciled students enrolled in higher education and over the last two decades the number has been growing 

Responses to the researchers’ English school questionnaire survey indicate that, amongst UK-nationals, some 2.8 per cent of state sector pupils and 5.5 per cent of independent sector pupils apply to universities outside the UK. Only a proportion of these are offered places to study abroad and choose finally to enrol. The survey revealed that many more pupils consider applying abroad, but in the end do not do so. The USA is by far the most popular destination for pupils considering studying abroad. It is particularly significant that it is the academically most gifted pupils who are the most likely to apply to foreign universities.

The international student survey identified a diverse range of motivations driving international student mobility. 

• The dominant influence was the desire to attend a world-class institution (55% said this was important and 89% said it was important or very important). The significance of this driver of UK student mobility may be interpreted in several different ways as discussed in the main report. For some, failure to gain a place at their desired UK university was a trigger to mobility.

• Other motivations that were seen as very important included the opportunity for adventure (50%) and the desire to take the first step towards an international career (34%)

The report provides an analysis of which students were most likely to be driven by the desire to attend what they perceived to be the best universities in the world. It also considers whether this group of students was significantly different from those going abroad in search of adventure, or as a first step towards permanent emigration, or because of a desire to gain a place to study a particular discipline (where the opportunity to do so did not exist in the UK Higher Education system).

Amongst students in our survey, UK international diploma mobility is shown to be a selective process influenced by class and parental educational background. For example:

• Students who had attended independent schools were much more likely than those from the state sector to claim that their mobility was triggered by the search for a world class university

• Students from families where one or both parents had higher education were much more likely to go abroad in search of a world class university than those from other backgrounds.
 
The student survey suggested that it was not only students from fee-paying schools that succeeded in gaining a place to study abroad. Almost 30 per cent of respondents had attended a UK state comprehensive and 54 per cent of respondents had received state schooling. Nevertheless, the independent sector was much more strongly represented in the sample of UK international students than one would expect relative to the size of this sector in the UK education system. 

Another key finding is that international diploma-mobility is highly differentiated by destination. 

• UK students enrolled at US universities are often from more privileged backgrounds. They often claimed that their move was in search of an elite university and many were seeking to enter an international career. 

• UK students in Australia were likely to be interested in permanent emigration.

• UK students in Ireland were much more likely to report that they would consider returning to the UK after graduation. 

Another important issue addressed by the report is the relationship between international student mobility and intentions to return to the UK. Some 24 per cent of students in the survey claimed that they had no intention of ever returning to the UK once their studies were complete. The vast majority did, however, plan to return, although many wanted to work abroad before coming back to the UK. Significantly, the survey results point to the students with the strongest A level results being more likely to want to return to the UK at some point after their studies. International student mobility should not therefore be interpreted as a brain drain of the UK’s best and brightest young people.

Organizations and organizational sectors are often conceptualized as embedded in environments that influence their development (Meyer and Scott 1992; Scott and Meyer 1994). These environments, in turn, have traditionally been imagined in local or national terms until the recent fascination with globalization and its transnational impacts (Drori 2003; Drori, Meyer et al. 2006). In this paper we reflect on the influence of the ideas “world class” and “best practices” on two different organizational sectors or fields: higher education and health. The paper sets forth and examines the assumptions underlying these ideas and their application to education and health organizations.

Higher education professional development trends increasingly focus on areas of quality improvement, quality assurance, and optimal technology delivery models. Whether the focus be on improving the quality of research, teaching, and/or student learning, the most effective professional development programs emphasize the importance of academic excellence as a standard that should be obtained and maintained among world-class universities. This article examines faculty development centers at four world-class universities in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Two public universities are included in our study (Australia National University and the University of Pittsburgh) along with two private institutions (Carnegie Mellon University and Oxford University). The article focuses on the continual professional development of teaching and research at each of the four institutions and provides suggestions for further research and best practice recommendations for establishing quality improvement in higher education instruction.